London Horror Movie Club

For the final episode of Season 2 we look at a handful of other films where people are trapped in the underground; even if that isn't a main feature of the film.  This includes Godzilla-inspired horror Gorgo, Hammer classic Quatermass and the Pitt,  Tobe Hooper's space-vampire film Lifeforce, and the recent haunted horror Woman In Black II.  All these films draw on the very real-life threat of being trapped on the underground by evoking imagery and the experience of World War II. 

We go into the deleted scene archive this episode for Danny Boyle's 2001 "28 Days Later", an icon of London Horror Cinema. Starring Cillian Murphy (Peaky Blinders) and Naomi Harris (Skyfall, Spectre) as survivors in a post-apocalyptic, Rage-infected London. The film has been talked about in many ways, but rarely considering how Boyle uses the 'safe space' of the underground. I will dive in to consider what it adds to the film - with and without the deleted scene - and share in the abandoned eerieness of this uncanny world.

For this episode, we go to Old Street Station in the 1998 horror Tale of the Mummy.  With a surprisingly star-studded cast (including Christopher Lee, Shelley Duvall, Gerard Butler, Sean Pertwee, Honor Blackman, and Michael Learner) this under-the-radar mummy movie is a wild and crazy ride. Archeologists discover the cursed tomb of the Egyptian ruler Talos precariously suspended over a pit of death. They bring Talos' cursed remains for display at the British Museum, only for Talos' spirit to awaken in the form of cursed mummy wrappings, which proceed to go on a murder spree throughout London. With a complex plot and a lot of nineties moxie, the film is jumbled but charming.

A deep cut of London Horror, "The Deaths of Ian Stone" is a hidden gem for those who loved other popular films of the time like "Constantine" or "Gabriel" but sought a less-religious and more dangerous angel.  Starring Mike Vogel (American Horror Story), Christina Cole (Jane Eyre, Poirot ), and Jamie Murray (Castlevania), the strong cast shines in this slow-burn fantasy in which average man Ian wakes up in the middle of a new life every time he dies, and no one seems to notice.  

In horror a character on the underground can be like a rat in a maze: lost, confounded, and inevitably trapped.  We've seen it in other episodes, but perhaps the most intensely shot example is in John Landis' American Werewolf in London.  This 1981 comedy horror is a classic. It won an academy award for Best Makeup and took home Saturn Awards for Best Horror Film and Best Makeup and it has even been adapted into a radio programme on BBC 1 Radio. Heck, Edgar Wright has sighted it as a major influence on Shaun of the Dead. You probably have seen this movie before, but I encourage you to watch it again, not just because it's an amazing film but because it created one of the most claustrophobic chase scenes in cinematic history where a lone passenger on Tottenham Court Road station tries to outrun the werewolf, and the underground doesn't seem to be on his side.

When does the underground become more than just a way to transport people in a city?  In this week's post-apocalyptic monster movie Reign of Fire (2002), the underground bookends the film as a symbolic space where young Quinn is forced to reckon with his past in the form of a dragon.  Starring Christian Bale and Matthew McConaughey, this is an unusual horror film in some ways but is also a callback to the monster movies of the  1930s and 40s with killer special effects.

Going deeper into the Underground, we go deeper into ourselves.  That is the psychological highlight of Episode 4 where we dig deep into the climactic underground scene in Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's 28 Weeks Later.  A sequel to the Danny Boyle film, 28 Days Later, Fresnadillo's film used pioneering camera techniques and a robust cast (including Robert Carlyle, Imogen Poots, Jeremy Renner, and Rose Byrne) winding their way through London hoping to escape a new outbreak of the Rage virus. For all the thrills in this action-heavy horror, its most intense and horrific moment happens on the platform of Charing Cross Underground.

A lot can happen in just one night.  Especially if that night is spent in the closed London Underground. And that is the premise of this episode's horror film, Christopher Smith's 2004 Creep. Trapped in a closed tube station, Franka Potente (best known for the Borne films) tries to escape while being pursued by a human science experiment living in the depths of the Underground.  A tense thriller gone gory, the film is also a socialist challenge to capitalism, a psychological test of humanity, and a vivid nightmare. 

This month brings Death Line, the twisted tale of cannibals on the London Underground that feed off wayward commuters. But the film does more than pit a monsterous underground dweller against London's students, as writer/director Gary Sherman exposes the monsters that live above as well as below.  Shot in the Old Aldwych Tube station and including horror giants Christopher Lee and Donald Pleasance, this month's horror pick is a cult classic on the London Underground.

Season 2: Terror on the Tube  

In Episode 1 Lauren takes us into Hobb's End where a Martian vessel is discovered just off the station platform in Quatermass and the Pit.  The 1967 Hammer film stars Andrew Keir and Barbara Shelley.  Mixing aliens, ghosts, and World War II, this film launched the Tube network into horror cinema history.